Music never Lied to me.

January 29 2016 – Shoreditch.

It has been a really busy week, a small and frustrating project at work filled far more time that it really needed to. I have been really good this year and have not taken work home with me very often, working my allotted four days and not much more. Though, having said that, this project has spilled into today and I will probably do four or five hours on my day off. It has also been busy socially, El and I had a quick drink after work on Monday for a third anniversary, followed by a wine tasting on Tuesday and  last night we attended a talk in our local bookshop by legendary rock photographer Kevin Cummins. El worked with Kevin many years ago when she was editing 90 Minutes – an English football magazine, I often envy El her work in journalism ! The talk was excellent, Kevin is an engaging speaker with some great stories. It did leave me deeply envious and with a plan to do more photography this year.

Even though I do not work Friday I was up early with El and got stuck into work as soon as she left, I managed to knock most of what I needed to do on the head by lunch time and decided I would go to Shoreditch and check out any new street art. I have only been out a couple of times in the past year or so, being a full time worker has certainly cramped by leisure time!

There is also a lot less happening street art wise now, the gentrification and citification of the area is well under way so sadly a lot of the old walls and hoardings have gone. It is the area’s loss in my opinion.

Though I have been to a few gallery openings lately and still keep an eye on my mate Plumms Instagram photos I am really out of touch with what is going on and who the artists are, I have even forgotten the names of a few familiar painters as well. You will have to forgive me for having a few unknown artists below.

Like this one to start with! This photo was taken a few weeks ago as well, but I did not have anything to post it with and I really like it.

There is a huge amount of construction going on in the area at the moment, which means lots of hoardings around building sites. Some allow painting and some do not. Most seem to be covered in graffiti rather than street art, but there are things more to my taste around. Like this by an artist I feel I should know…

Good to see Dscreet still panting owls here and there.

Gent 48

This piece by Olivier Roubieu is fabulous.

Blackall Street was always a favourite place, loads of paste-ups and stickers, and I have never seen a Dale Grimshaw paste-up before so this was a cool find.

Savant provided this posts title.

I do not know who painted this, I kind of cut off the end of the name in the photo…

Unify

Unknown

Another piece by Unify.

Nice to see Jim Vision is still painting walls, he has done some great pieces on this wall off of Redchurch St over the years.

I am a big fan of Alo, and it looks like his style has changed a little since I last saw some of his work.

I do not know this artist either.

But I am very familiar with Dan Kitchener and was hoping he would paint in Walthamstow last year.

This Shepard Fairey has been here for a very long time, but I do not recall ever having taken an photo it. Given the rate that buildings are being knocked over, I decided I should grab one just in case!

I stopped in a Rough Trade to grab El a copy of the new Savages LP, ‘Adore Life’, and also grabbed a photo of this on the way past.  I like the both.

There is a new(ish) Otto Schade in Brick Lane, I think this a spot he has painted on before.

It started to rain as I walked down Brick Lane, the rain was not forecasted and I was not prepared for it, so decided to call it quits and headed back to Liverpool St Station.

I was shocked to find the old London Exchange building was completely gone, I knew it was going to be demolished, I mean who needs old buildings when new glass ones are so much better. But the hole in ground was a complete surprise, and an unpleasant one at that! Nice to see they kept the facade… 

It was good to get out and see some street art again, though I was mildly disappointed at how little there was, and at the lack of something that really wowed me. It is likely there is a lot more hidden away, and if wasn’t for the rain I would have explored a little further.

If badgers could cull 70% of politicians…

It has been a while since I have done a street art walk in the east end. I have a couple of weeks off of work and not much to do today so texted my street art walking mate Plumms to see if he had some time this afternoon to hit the streets of Shoreditch. He did…

I decided to cycle in from Walthamstow and check out a new piece I saw on the interweb by Zabou near Broadway Market on the way. I also needed an excuse to get off my arse.

I met up with Plumms at Liverpool St and we took our usual walk up Great Eastern Street towards City Rd, down Rivington St, across to Redchurch and then down Brick Lane and all it’s side streets.

Mr Shizz – I think…

Ana Tronen

A fabulous old C215 has reappeared from under some paste ups.

P A D

I really liked this by Ryan Smeeton, possibly my favourite piece of the day.

There is an awesome looking Phlegm piece in Red Market but I could not get a decent shot, will try again another day. I am a massive Phlegm fan.

Otto Schade

An artist that is new to me, but I really liked this, Waleska

Two pieces, sneakily hidden on the back of a pub on City Rd by Falko One.

I am not sure who the next two are by, but I liked them both enough to take a photo…

Alo

Telma and Miel

A small part of a massive wall by Jim Vision on the passing away of the author Terry Pratchet.

Dan Kitchener – an unusual mono piece,

Louis Masai

The big wall from the ‘meeting of styles’ paint jam from a few weeks back.

Zadok

Loved this from Kyle Hughes Odgers

A close favourite is this from Martin Ron, the face has hints of John Lydon in my opinion.

Alexis Diaz

Otto Schade

Shok one.

Fanakapan – I love his new style.

Mr Cenz

Jimmy C

An oldie that was recently discovered by Plumms

And finally, by Elly. Freedom of Speech.

It was a good walk, nice to be out having a look around, not a huge amount of new stuff to see, not like the hey days of two/three years ago, but still some nice stuff around.

Good work !!

Thierry Noir – Jazz, an exhibition at Howard Griffin Gallery.

I am a big fan of the cartoon characters and bright colours that inhabit the works of the well known street, and gallery artist, Thierry Noir.

There is a wonderful exhibition of some of his new work in the Howard Griffin Gallery in Shoreditch until the end of July 2015.  Well worth checking out.

The exhibition is titled ‘Jazz’ and alongside the normal collection of canvases and prints there are some quite cool musical instruments.

As it was opening night, which was sponsored by Hennessy, there was also some fine – and interestingly painted booze to drink too !

BMD in Auckland, New Zealand

June 2015

I recently took a quick trip home to Auckland, New Zealand to visit family. I did not have a lot of time there and did not get to go looking for street art this time.

As the council take a dim view of any sort of self expression there is little in the way if street art around, and not much that was not there last time I visited.

I did like this from a long mural in Corban’s Estate in Henderson.

Goth Rainbow

I had a good laugh at this, spotted in Covent Garden. Good to see there are still people out there with a quick mind, a sense of humour and a piece of chalk…

 

e17 – street art’s late bloomer.

Sunday 22nd February 2015  -Walthamstow.

I live in e17, in Walthamstow to be specific, I like it. It is a nice working middle class London suburb, generally quiet and family orientated, nothing much ever happens here. However the area is slowly changing, we have some awesome cafes, some really good places to eat, pubs with real beer, a local brewery with a bar and recently the cinema came back with a small multiplex opening in town. Some times change is good.

Towards the end of 2014 something else changed in e17, we started to get some street art, proper street art by established artists. Huge thanks is owed to local group Wood St Walls who have been organising walls for artists to paint on as well as finding the artists to paint on those walls.

The first wall that went up was by Wood St Walls members We like Static, the piece has been moved from its original location in Ravenswood Industrial Park – near the Wildcard Brewery, and for life of me I cannot find a picture of it on my computer.

For the next piece a call went out on Twitter for artist recommendations so I suggested seeing if ATM would be available to paint one of his lovely wildlife pieces on a wall, and awesomely he was…

Two pied wagtails went up on a car park wall at the back of Wood St, El and I went and had a look and a chat to ATM earlier in the year but we had not been back since to see the fully completed wall.

With three new pieces being completed in the area in the past week we decided to go for a walk around and check them all out.

The Bell pub is our local, less than a hundred yards from home and now it has the very cool piece from We Like Static and Teddy Barden on one of its walls. I really like this.

Next up is another wall from We Like Static, on the corner of Victoria Rd and Fullbourne Rd. It was only finished this week and sadly slightly blocked by a car. With the sun at a bad angle it was a tough photo to take.  I really liked this as well!

The Toasters is an old school name in the street art world, there are Toasters all over the world and it was pretty damn cool to hear that there was going to be Toasters near Wood St. There is nothing fancy; with Toasters, you know what you are going to get.  Love them!

Like the last piece there was a car parked right in front, so I could not get the shot I wanted, I decided to go for a reflection for something different.

The next street along has the two pied wagtails from the very nice ATM.

Back in the Ravenswood Industrial Park, Dave Bonzai has also just finished a new piece “Liquid Chrome”. This style is not really my cup of tea as I prefer my street art to be more art, but I sort of like it, and it is very clever and I am pleased to see it here.

On the way here El and I stopped for coffee and the loveliest bit of cake I have had in a long time at Aura Rosa in Wood St Market. The chocolate berry cake was just amazing, so good. I needed the long walk to pay for the cake.

It is great to see some street art coming to my hood.  Huge thanks to Wood St Walls for facilitating it all.  I hope to see more work soon, maybe even a Dan Kitchener – who I also suggested….

Last chance to see – a bit of Camden disappearing.

Sunday 25 January 2015 – Camden.

The second in a two part series of recent London street art, this time from Camden.

Last week I saw a tweet from Inspiring City, one of my favourite London street art bloggers, advising that the Hawley Market in Camden had just been closed down, at very short final notice to the stall holders. I guess they knew it was coming as the site had long been marked down as the location for a new school along with the inevitable flats that I am sure no-one from the area will be able to afford.

Over the past few months the permanent market stalls had been painted over by a  variety of both local and overseas artists, with some really nice work being completed, so it was a bit of a shock and a shame to see them all going.  As I mentioned in yesterdays post there are now large tracts of London slowly being bulldozed into oblivion for the sake of ‘progress’. Progress for whom I am not sure.

El and I wanted to go for a walk before a two year anniversary lunch in Islington, and decided to go to Kings Cross on the tube and walk to Islington via a big detour to Camden – almost in the opposite direction.  We walked along the side of Regents Canal, I haven’t been along here for quite a while, but the whole canal system has to be a long and skinny favourite part of London. Even this section just behind Kings Cross station in central London looks like it could be located in a small rural town, apart from the BT Tower sneaking it’s way into the horizon.

The Hawley Market runs along the side of the canal and is now all fenced off. There are a lot more huts painted than there was the last time I visited, maybe Captain Kris is showing what he thinks if the closure.

It is also a shame to lose this from Gnasher as well.

‘Save the Bees’ from Louis Masai. Both Louis and Gnasher did some work a couple of summers ago on an underpass in Walthamstow Marshes and thankfully there is no plan, yet, to full the marshes with houses.

We walked around to the far side of the market on Hawley St, passed a soon to be unloved Hunto.

Down Selbourne Rd there was a new mural from Lost Souls Crew

And this cool wall from Dan Kitchener – I am hoping Dan will be painting in Walthamstow fairly soon, there has been a bit of painting going on lately organised by a local group Wood St Walls.

There was also a new piece from Mr Cenz.

Down the side of the railway arches there were a couple of pieces I haven’t seen before, one from Jimmy C.

And one from an artist who I am vaguely familiar with but cannot pin a name on right now, but I really liked this.

I was hoping to have a look at the houses along here, as a number have been painted prior to demolition. However, the road is now closed and the crews are moving in. I am not entirely sure if this section is part of the school/flats project or just an excuse to tie in with the school build and ram up some more flats. I guess the one tiny tiny benefit of the closure of these houses was that they became temporary legal canvases.

A door from D7606

A big Himbad

A bit of fun from Zadok

A Je Suis Charlie mural from Tom Blackford.

Dan Kitchener

And finally this very nice mural from Irony.

It was then time to head towards our lunch reservation at the posh fish and chip shop in Islington, almost an hours walk away.  Like Shoreditch yesterday, a small part of town is disappearing, I am sure there are many who will say we need to the housing in London and it is only a small section, but I fear it will be a death by a thousand cuts and all of a sudden we will realise that all the bits that made London the cool city it is will be gone.

“No Hope. Turn Back.” A street art walk in Shoreditch.

Saturday 24 January 2015 – Shoreditch.

It was a glorious winter day with clear skies and a reasonable temperature,  out of the wind it was quite nice, but there was a real bite of wind chill, especially in the shade. It was not a day worth wasting and with El meeting a friend for lunch I took the opportunity to re-visit some old haunts and go look at some street art. I have not been to Shoreditch since early November and I was intrigued to see if much had been going on since, I was fairly disappointed last time I was out. I had been reading stories of walls being knocked down and buildings closed and it was time to go and see it myself, plus it was a good excuse to do a walk through of Rough Trade and see if there was any essential vinyl to purchase. There is always essential vinyl to purchase as it happens, and today was no different!

My first stop was Rockwell House, I have been to a few parties and live painting events on the roof of Rockwell House over the past couple of years and it the studio home of Jim Vision and End of the Line – whose work I really enjoyed. Rockwell House has now been closed and will soon be demolished to clear space for a series of new offices being built across this end of the east end – the part where it brushes up against the city. We obviously need more space for bankers, lawyers, consultants and all those other vital cogs to the UK economy, no room for creatives in this modern world…

The cowboy painting by American artist El Mac has graced the side of Rockwell House since 2011 and is one of my favourite works of art in the area, it will be a shame to see it go – though I guess the transitional nature of street art is one of its greatest facets. The 13 Coins piece is quite new.

On the far side of the building there were quite a few painted walls, though unfortunately there was almost also a corresponding amount of cars to cover up the art. There were a couple of pieces exposed, one by Antony Lister – who I last saw hanging in a gallery with price tags way out of my league.

I believe this is by Jim Vision – I haven’t seen too many faces by him, really good too.

My next stop was the Leonard St Carpark, hoardings have been up here for a while so I knew there was some demolition planned, but it is a shame to see things disappearing. Nice hoarding by Boxhead though.

Round the corner from the carpark is Blackall St, which was a narrow one lane road that was covered in stickers, paste ups, graff and other painting. It has always been a favourite place to visit, but I was totally shocked to find that one side of the street was completely gone!

There are hoardings around the site, which have all been painted, but it is not the same… I guess we are lucky that the hoardings are painted as so many in this area are not.

A little bit of Blackall St style.

As I walked back towards Leonard St I caught a flash of a colour out of the corner of my eye so wandered off towards Scrutton st where I found this lovely new bird from Bailon.

And this possibly older shutter from Bailon, Dr Zadok and Sokar.

I wanted to see the Amara piece on the back of the Villlage Underground so headed back the way I came and found this quite cool piece by Jimmy C.

I was then shocked again to find the carpark at the back of the VU being dug up as well,, not that pedestrians were ever allowed in there to take photos, carpark security wouldn’t allow it. I sort of understood the situation , lots of cars and allowing people to wander around obviously comes with some security risks, but there were some good walls behind the security and I never got to see them properly. Still won’t I guess.

The Amara piece was pretty cool.

Back over on the Brick Lane side I came across this from Jim Vision, I think given to what has been happening to the inner East End lately, ‘no hope’ is an apt message.

The small car park off of Brick Lane is a regular spot for artists and viewers, though I have never seen this sign before – not that I come to the area much on a Saturday, I hope it doesn’t mean that this spot will be black listed as well.

The street art tour has become big business and I saw at least four large groups in the Brick Lane area in the short time I was there, these two large groups in Hanbury St effectively stopping anyone from seeing or photographing any of the street art. Luckily there was not a lot of change since the last time I was there.

Though I kinda licked this, but have no idea who it is by.

There was not a lot else to see so I popped into Rough Trade for a coffee and a record purchase or two, Hookworms – The Hum and Disappears – Era. On my way up towards Broadway Market where I had decided to go for lunch I found this fun piece from Graffiti Life, and that was the last new bit of art I saw all day.

Seeing so much change to the Shoreditch area was really disturbing, so much of the city is disappearing to allow new offices and apartments for wealthy investors to buy and not live. Soho is now under threat and the old ‘Tin Pan Alley’ – Denmark St has been given notice for demolition. Tomorrow El and I are going to Camden and there is a whole load more heartache there as well. All the good bits of London will be gone, probably before me.

A long over due upload.

Bloody hell, it has been an age since I last posted anything here. Getting a full time job has really put a dent into my walking around and enjoying myself time….

I have been out a couple of times and seen a little bit of street art over the past three months, seems to have only been about once a month though.

So, here is a catch up….

September.

The best thing in September was Phlegm’s murals and small exhibition at the Royal Opera in Covent Garden – and not too far from my office either.

The small exhibition was wonderful, I would love to own one of his pieces.

I caught up with my mate Darryl for one walk after work one evening, though I was surprised that there was not a heck of a lot going on – and this seems to be the case since as well. Has the thrill gone for the artists and promoters ?

Alex Senna

Alexis Diaz

A couple of Ricky Dep’s

and a great Mr Cenz.

October was even drier, I only went for a short walk one Saturday with El, Primarily to see a new Phlegm mural in Shoreditch.

A work by an artist new to me – Eelus (Thanks to Inspiring City for the artist name)

But I did see a lovely new dale Grimshaw.

And this rather cool piece by Amanda Marie.

 Last Thursday I joined Darryl for a couple of exhibition openings, the first we went to was at the Well Hung Gallery in Hoxton, they had a group show with a couple of really cool pieces from Dale Grimshaw.

I ended up buying a print of another piece and when I get a copy I will post a picture, it is the first street art print I have bought 🙂

We then wandered down to a really packed Hoxton Gallery for an exhibition by Martin Watson.

They were both pretty good shows, the Watson was really busy, which was good, he seemed to have sold a lot of work – and it was not cheap either…

If everything happens for a reason I’m going find that reason and punch it in the face.

Street Art Thursdays – 31 July 2014

With a trip back home to New Zealand followed by a weekend away in Copenhagen I have not been out on the streets of the East End for a street art walk for a few weeks, so I was really looking forward to this street art Thursday. I was hoping for some fresh new work and I was not disappointed….

I was also keen to test out my new camera, my first proper point and shoot camera. Though I did regret not having the big Canon and it’s really wide-angle lens.

Our first stop was one of the new Ben Eine pieces, which I managed to sort of get by taking four shots and stitching together. This is one of my better stitch efforts.

Opposite this was a piece by an artist whose name I have forgotten.

There is some new painting happening on the four panels on Great Eastern Street, only the Ant Carver piece has been completed.

Himbad still has away to go… And I know it is against all principles to post unfinished work, but meh. I kinda like this as is…

Though there is a finished piece around the corner.

I really liked this, but do not know who painted it.

Roes one has visited London and left a few of his pieces on the streets, all wonderful.

 

 

We took a walk up towards Hackney to hunt down a new Boe and Irony bird,

stopping to check out some work by Zabou,

and Jimmy C on the way.

There are a few new pieces back in the usual haunts, I like this by Zina.

And of course Louis Masai is always great.

Near this was a multi-eyed Tiger by Brave.

And a cool new piece by Conor Harrington.

Our last stop for the evening was at Stolen Space gallery where it was the last day of a joint show from a number of artists including one of my favourites Snik.

I also really liked these from (I think) Pixel Pancho.

I loved this paste up found earlier in the walk down in Blackall St.

It was a good day out, nice to see some cool new stuff!